KEY POINTS:
Paul Taite says the Telecom "broadband", or narrowband as it should be called, was running very slowly on Saturday. So where would New Zealand be on this graph?
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A man who told two women they were extremely beautiful was arrested on charges of harassment last week, Denver police said. Jeff John Hergert, 32, approached the women and "expressed interest in them", officers said. He told each woman in two separate incidents that she was extremely beautiful and should consider modelling.
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Good lord, the new Yellow Pages website is hilariously bad," a reader exclaims. "I searched for 'lingerie retail' and got a farming irrigation company. It also helpfully offered to refine my search by Justices of the peace, builders or restaurants."
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A landlord was stunned when he received an £11 million ($28.3 million) gas bill for his two-bedroom rented flat. Denis Dixon knew immediately that it was a mistake - as he had already paid the £500 quarterly bill for the property in Charminster, Dorset. Dixon told the Daily Echo newspaper in Bournemouth: "When I phoned British Gas and told the woman at the other end I was going to have difficulty paying my gas bill, she suggested we could come to some sort of an arrangement. She checked the bill and then just laughed, saying she could only apologise."
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Inspired by the Live Earth concert, Luke Elliott (15) from Kerikeri went to the website to see what he could do to help the cause. "One of the most interesting things was that if cities change the bulbs in traffic lights to LEDs, they will cut down on the power used by 80 per cent. I think this would be a good idea, especially with New Zealand's reputation as a clean, green country. If we could change every traffic light in the country to LEDs, then it would be a good step towards making a big impact on climate change."
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Dave Robertson found it ironic that Australian dance act Sneaky Sound System chanted during their song at Live Earth, "Keep me on, don't switch me off", alongside all the turn-your-lights-off-when-not-in-the-room messages.
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Don't believe everything you read: The quote attributed to Mariah Carey in Sideswipe on Saturday was not true. According to Snopes.com, the quote came from a satirical Mariah Carey "interview" that appeared on the internet in a web publication called Cupcake in early 1996. The sentence - "When I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean, I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff" - was quoted in VOX magazine (a British culture/movie/music publication), from which British newspaper the Independent picked up the story and from there it spread like crazy. Same goes for the Dan Quayle quote - "It isn't pollution that is hurting the environment, it's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it" - which was actually from humour magazine Mad. Thanks to the readers who pointed this out. Sideswipe hangs its head in shame.
